Welcome to My Blog

Scrum Masters: Take Time Off To Think

There's more than what's in the two-day class to know.

Scrum Masters: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

It bums me out a bit how much scrum masters tend to stick with one methodology – a methodology they learned, usually, at a two-day class. I’ve got nothing against the two-day scrum class. The basics are actually quite good. If used properly, those methodologies will reveal issues a team is having. But a scrum […]

Setting Expectations for Vendor Resources

A few tips to make sure you get the right resources from your vendor for Time & Materials contracts.

Inception: Choosing Your Leadership Team

Large Agile projects need a dedicated leadership team that has a common vision, yet is collaborative and open to new ideas. This video describes a few attributes of a good leadership team when starting a large agile project.

Scrum of Scrums Facilitator

Sometimes, having a facilitator, especially for young teams, makes sense. This video provides a few recommendations for the attributes of a good Scrum of Scrums facilitator.

Scrum of Scrums

Scrum of Scrums is a regular meeting where team leads gather to talk and, as much as possible, be open about project challenges, root out dependencies, brainstorm solutions, and make commitments that will move the project forward. This post gives a few suggestions for holding a successful meeting.

Agile Status Reports: Do We Need Them?

I wish we could do away with status reports all together, but we need to make sure our clients and executives know what's going on quickly. Kill the red/yellow/green and go with the facts.

Is Scrum Certification A Good Idea?

There's been a lot of debate about whether or not you should get a Scrum Master Certificate. There’s even more debate about which certificate to get.

The Pros:

The best aspect of a generic certification is that there is at least some evidence that the person who has the certification has heard the basics of the craft. As an employer, you can’t always test each applicant for basic knowledge. The notation of a certification on your resume can speed things up.

Of course, if the practice is complex--like brain surgery--you want to make sure your applicant knows more than the basics, so rigorous certification and licensing processes are needed. 

One of the positives about Scrum certification, versus, say getting a license to practice medicine, is the certification is not very expensive. You can get an online certification for a few hundred bucks, or attend an in-person class and test for about $1,200.

One Standup Approach

Everybody does Agile standups a little differently. I recommend you: 1) actually standup, 2) do them in person if possible, and 3) record due dates. Not exactly by the book, but it works

The Cut Line

How much should the team commit to?